AuthorTopic: Seating Chart Penmanship (Read 5847 times)

In one of our classes, it was random name-drawing from index cards. In one, he basically memorized our resumes and called on us if we had any relevant experience to the case being discussed, and if not you finally got called on sometime toward the end of the semester. In the other, the class was divided into thirds, and there was only a chance you'd be called on every third day. Within that, no discernible pattern.

My Civ Pro class was only 40 peope and met four times a week. I sat in the second row (there were only three). I was never called on the entire time. My last name has 2 syllables and is a very common and easy to pronounce spanish surname. I think I just lucked out in that class.

However, a girl who was in both my Civ Pro and Property class was called on the 1st two weeks in both classes and her last name was incredibly difficult to pronounce and maybe had 5 syllables. I think sometimes it depends on the professor.

Check out this excerpt from the New York Times. I'm in his Con Law class this coming semester:

Every day before his lecture "Introduction to Constitutional Law," Prof. Richard Primus conducts a ritual that Hollywood might call "Socratic method meets social engineering." In an office tucked off the law library stacks, he takes out two piles of index cards adorned with the face-book pictures of his 91 first-year students. Like a blackjack dealer in a casino, he shuffles the piles, which are split by sex, then deals out 10 cards from each, the first step in compiling the list of students to be called on during class.

"I've got three black students out of 20, which is plenty," Professor Primus said one recent morning, now the coach adjusting his lineup. Surveying the selected men, he sighed and sent the top three back to the pile: one had been grilled the day before, another already had four hash marks, indicating the number of times he had been picked, and the third belonged to Richard Hoeg, a white man known throughout campus for his conservative views. "Mr. Hoeg talks every day," Professor Primus explained. "Sometimes he has good things to say, but I don't need to call on him."

Once he had 20 viable cards, the young professor turned to the more delicate process of sequencing, starting with the women's pile. Given the persistent pattern of men speaking more often in classrooms, he tries to pick women two of the first three times he calls on students.

"I want to make sure the conversation in the first few minutes includes some women," he said. "I won't call on three men in a row. It's just too much." The first man in the deck sits too close to the first woman, so he shuffled again. "I want to move the conversation around the room," he said, swapping Kristin Cleary, who sits to the professor's right, for Umbreen Bhatti across the room. Then he picked a man who sits toward the back, then a woman down front. He stopped for a demographic check: two of the first four on the roster were minority women. He was set.

wow, your professor sounds like a complete and total prick, im glad I dont have him. Im surprised that a con law professor with some knowledge of the constitution would used racists and sexist methods in choosing his students to be called on.

my professors use a much better and less assholish method and call on people by going down rows, based on the relation of their undergrad major to the topic of the case, or by trying to create a pattern in the classroom based on the order in which students are selected.

wow, your professor sounds like a complete and total prick, im glad I dont have him. Im surprised that a con law professor with some knowledge of the constitution would used racists and sexist methods in choosing his students to be called on.

I actually don't think that's racist or sexist. It's constitutional law, and in every Conlaw class I've ever taken, I've found the discussion is far more in depth, varied and interested when a variety of people from different backgrounds speak up. By making sure he calls on women and minorities, instead of just the conservative white guy who raises his hand all the time, he's trying not only to get everyone to participate, but also to ensure that his class touches upon the various viewpoints that are out there.

I'd actually like to sit in on this prof's class. I'd think there would be more interesting discussion than there was in my 1L con law class.

Something else to consider: If you have a last name that is first or last in the class alphabetically, you can probably expect to get called on the first day of class. It is easy for the professors to remember that they called on the last/first person on the list than to remember the name of someone in the middle.

My Civ Pro class was only 40 peope and met four times a week. I sat in the second row (there were only three). I was never called on the entire time. My last name has 2 syllables and is a very common and easy to pronounce spanish surname. I think I just lucked out in that class.

However, a girl who was in both my Civ Pro and Property class was called on the 1st two weeks in both classes and her last name was incredibly difficult to pronounce and maybe had 5 syllables. I think sometimes it depends on the professor.

wow, your professor sounds like a complete and total prick, im glad I dont have him. Im surprised that a con law professor with some knowledge of the constitution would used racists and sexist methods in choosing his students to be called on.

I actually don't think that's racist or sexist. It's constitutional law, and in every Conlaw class I've ever taken, I've found the discussion is far more in depth, varied and interested when a variety of people from different backgrounds speak up. By making sure he calls on women and minorities, instead of just the conservative white guy who raises his hand all the time, he's trying not only to get everyone to participate, but also to ensure that his class touches upon the various viewpoints that are out there.

I'd actually like to sit in on this prof's class. I'd think there would be more interesting discussion than there was in my 1L con law class.

Close call...when you're discussing, say, race, and the Con Law prof calls on the black guy, isn't he maybe, implicitly, asking him to speak on behalf of all black people, as if they'd all give the same answer?